This conversation took place after a carouse, in the presence of witnesses. Whether Mísha's proposal really did strike the officer as curious or not,—at all events, he consented. The cards were brought, the game began. Mísha was lucky; he won one hundred rubles. And thereupon his opponent smote himself on the forehead.
"What a blockhead I am!" he cried.—"On what a bait was I caught! If thou hadst lost, much thou wouldst have shot thyself through the hand!—so it's just an assault on my pocket!"
"That's where thou art mistaken," retorted Mísha:—"I have won—but I'll shoot the hole through my hand."
He seized his pistol, and bang! shot himself through the hand. The bullet went clear through … and a week later the wound was completely healed!
On another occasion still, Mísha is riding along the road by night with his comrades…. And they see yawning, right by the side of the road, a narrow ravine in the nature of a cleft, dark, very dark, and the bottom of it not visible.
"Here now," says one comrade, "Mísha is reckless enough about some things, but he will not leap into this ravine."
"Yes, I will!"
"No, thou wilt not, because it is, probably, ten fathoms deep, and thou mightest break thy neck."
His friend knew how to attack him—through his vanity…. Mísha had a great deal of it.
"But I will leap, nevertheless! Wilt thou bet on it? Ten rubles."